Adele producer: Keeping mum about ‘Hello’ was hard

The video for the British singer’s long-awaited new single, “Hello” – her first video since 2011 – set a new record for Vivo, the top music video platform, racking up 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours.The huge success of the singer’s ’21’ campaign looks set to continue with video streaming platform Vevo announcing today that, with 27.7m views, the ‘Hello’ video is an official record holder having gained the most views ever in a 24 hour period. That’s enough to eclipse the existing first-week sales tally (Flo Rida’s “Right Round” sold 636,000 in 2009) and puts her on track to break the magic million mark. Statistics provided to NME by Apple show that ‘Hello’ is Number One on iTunes in 102 countries around the world while new album ’25’ is Number One in 93 countries on pre-orders alone.

That’s impressive enough, but there’s more! “Hello” also broke the first-day sales (it was downloaded 400,000 times) and first-day VEVO records. The sepia-tinged visual was watched 27+ million in the first 24 hours, which obliterates the record Taylor Swift set with “Bad Blood” in May (it racked up 20.1 million views). And Adele is one of the few consistent moneymakers the music industry has. “My last record was a break-up record,” Adele wrote about the new album in a note on Facebook last week, “and if I had to label this one, I’d call it a make-up record.

The video has now been watched nearly 71 million times. (To be fair to TSwizzle, it has a way to go before its total views get anywhere close to the 598 million views of “Bad Blood”.) The six-minute video, which was shot using IMAX cameras, features the singer and “The Wire” star Tristan Wilds. Making up for everything I ever did and never did.” Later in the letter Adele added: “’25’ is about getting to know who I’ve become without realising. And I’m sorry it took so long, but you know, life happened.” Damon Albarn worked on new material with Adele, but said he doesn’t think she will use it. And, perhaps inevitably, it’s also spawning viral comedy video clips, like this one mashing up Adele’s “Hello” with Lionel Richie’s 1983 song of the same name.

The new material is also rumoured to include a song written by Tobias Jesso Jr, as well as appearances from OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, producer Danger Mouse and pop writer-producer Max Martin, who’s best known for his work with ’90s pop acts N’Sync, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. Just over a week ago, a mysterious ad ran during Britain’s X-Factor broadcast that contained just a few lines of the song – but neither the singer nor label would confirm it was her until the day before the single and video were released. Earlier this year, producer Emile Haynie revealed he met with Adele in February to discuss potentially working together, but that the singer was “taking her time” over a new album. “We got along well as friends when we met in February and I hope we can cut some songs, but Adele is taking her time,” he said. “I’d push for it to happen, but we’ll have to wait and see.” Twitter, not surprisingly, exploded when it collectively saw videos of the commercial – and that obsession has since transferred to the actual video.

It is the tenth-largest selling album since the organization started tracking music sales in 1991 and generated five hit singles Between Adele and Swift, this has been a banner year for big music videos. Prior to the two sings, the biggest video debut on Vivo was Nicki Manaj’s “Anaconda” from Aug. 2014, which was viewed 19.6 million times in 24 hours, followed by Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” from Sept. 2013, with 19.3 million views.